Saturday, 18 October 2014

Manage the Nanowrimo Madness to Suit You!

Right now thousands of authors worldwide are gearing themselves
up for a ferocious writing marathon. November is National Novel Writing Month
and the challenge is to write 50,000 words in one month.

This would be almost reasonable if all the participants were
locked in a wifi-free shed with just their laptop, an espresso machine and a
treadmill to get the oxygen flowing back to the brain when writers block kicked
in.

The reality is they will be fitting this epic number
of words into their normal lives, with families, full time jobs, dogs needing
to be walked and houses needing to be maintained. They will fight against time
and tiredness, they will forgo nights out (or write through the hangovers),
they will do whatever it takes to deliver on the challenge!

Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL CRAZY

... about writing.

I'm excited even though I'm not going to do it. If I
wrote that quickly I know I'd only have to throw most of it away. My other
excuse is that I've already got my novel written, I just need to edit the
monster. So instead I plan to get up an hour earlier each day during November
to work on it. I'm a big believer in setting manageable goals. Too many people
set themselves up for defeat by proposing impossible targets, and then get frustrated and feel like a failure. If you don't think you can
write 50,000, why not aim for half of it? Or 100 words each day? It's still
valuable!

So, 6am it is. That's probably a normal waking hour
for many of you but for me it'll be a good but doable challenge.